Went for my first romp through the new Adventure Mode, and it was rather epic. I left the mountainhomes a trained Hammerdwarf, to liberate the dwarven children kidnapped by Goblin thieves, and arrived at the Dark Towers at dawn. Clambering up a nearby mountain, I spied the top of a tower that ran against the side of the mountian, and lept down onto the parapets from the cliffs above. I was winded for a moment after the fall, and a human guard was on me in moments. Luckily, he didn't know how to use his halberd, and went down quickly. A Human Ranger opened fire at me through a crowd of peasants, but only caught my shield. I hurled a handful of sand at his face, and caught him with the hammer solidly enough to knocked him out against the parapets.
Just then, the Warleader for the tower, a burly dwarf wielding a Sivler Maul, charged up the tower steps, and challenged me to combat. His training and equipment were far better than mine, and I couldn't hit him. He bruised my leg pretty bad, but I managed to dodge his next charging attack, which put some distance between us. I ran to the fallen Human Guard from earlier, and grabbed his Halberd, hurling it at the War Leader, which managed to sever his left leg. As he went down, I quickly closed, and finished him with a crushing blow to the head, recovering his Iron Shield and Armor, but leaving the Silver Maul with his corpse.
I then ran down the tower steps, and into the rooms below where the prisoners were held. Some of the residents came after me, but none were armed or skilled, and though one managed to punch me in the jaw and knock loose a tooth, I just tumbled past them. Descending to the bottom floor, I found two dwarven children cowering in the corner, and quickly told them to come with me. As we left, a dwarven miner stood in the doorway. I tried to walk past him, but he brandished his pick, and swung it to pierce right through my iron boot. The children stayed back as I went after him with my hammer... but he skillfully parried swing after swing, counterstriking with his mining pick. I finally scored a minor blow to his body, but his pick came down and pierced out my right eye. Bleeding badly, I dropped the hammer and shield, and grabbed the mining pick with both hands, pulling it from the wound, and wrenched it from his grasp, before tossing it to the floor behind me. Still bleeding, and half blind, I grabbed my equipment and struck him soundly, knocking him to the ground. A worthy opponent, I decided to leave him alive, and I fled with the children from the tower.
As I crossed over to the second tower, I ran across 5 more dwarven children and a human prisoner, who joined me as well. There were few guards left to stand in my way, and I cleared the tower with little trouble. As I left the second tower, I was jumped around a corner by a Human Thief, who slashed me from behind. Another Human Thief was nearby as well, and they both flanked me, cutting through the iron mail with their daggers. I withdrew into a larger chamber, where the children had been hiding during the battle, and pulled out a quiver recovered from a fallen Ranger, hurling iron bolts like darts at the two thieves. I caught one in the leg, and the other in the arm and body, and they both went down from pain. So much for lack of depth-perception!
I then fled north with the 8 children in tow, to return to the Dwarven lands, but as we went we ran across a ring of engraved pillars, surrounding a pool of water. Images of waves, water, and a Human God of Twilight were engraved everywhere surrounding the pool. As we drew near, a High Priest known as The Holy Rumor shouted a challenge down from a ring of walkways atop the pillars. Since he wouldn't come down to fight me, I hurled my Hammer up at him, and nailed his body before it clattered down into the temple pool below, staining the water with his blood. I ran up a ramp and faced down the Holy Rumor, and the children gathered at the pillars below, looking up as we grappled with each other. It was a precarious fight, and we teetered on the edge of the platform, but despite our wounds neither of us went down. As a new troop of guards neared the temple, and the cowering children, I knew I didn't have long. I sidestepped the Priest, positioning him between me and the pool below, and bullrushed him, tackling him off of the high ledge, but falling in the process.
We hit the water hard, and slammed into the stone tiles below, stunning and knocking the air from our lungs. I didn't know how to swim, and knew he and I would both drown, so I crawled over to where my hammer had landed in the pool. I picked it up, and with the last of my strength tossed it up to the ledge where the children were gathered, hoping to arm them with something before darkness overtook me.
So ends the adventure of Mezbuth Crestchanneled "The Crystalline Gallows"
Epilogue: The children managed to escape the guards, and the Dark Towers, and return to their homes. The goblins were furious, and declared Mezbuth's homeland their enemy, as they fished his corpse from the pool and spitted him on a pike for killing their Priest and Warleader, and freeing their prisoners. The miner who struck Mezbuth's eye out survived his wounds, and continued his work.